New Discipline Guidelines for Your Kid’s School

It’s no secret that some of the nation’s school can be unsafe, even dangerous. To address that issue – and solve for others – the Department of Education and Justice Department have collaborated for a set of new discipline guidelines to define best practices.

Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for the Civil Rights Office at the Department of Education joined “NewsOne Now” to discuss the new guidelines and issues around discipline in our nation’s schools.

“It’s critically important that we speak as one administration on the issue of school discipline and it’s critically important to our students right now that we solve this problem,” Lhamon told host Jeff Johnson. “We’ve had a Supportive School Discipline Initiative, where we’ve been working together – both departments – to try to make sure all of our students are safe in school and that our schools are ready for them.”

Lhamon says that the new guidelines are the culmination of that initiative so the administration can send out materials to schools, “So they understand what tools they have to make sure all of our students are learning in class and are appropriate in class, and also that we don’t push our students out of school in a time when we could be serving them.”